For overall system performance we use PCMark Vantage. This is run in both x86 and x64 mode to give the best indication of performance.

The performance numbers here represent an interesting item. Consider that we are comparing (in reality) an AMD 770 chipset against an AMD 890FX and our numbers are very close; at least the x86 test run is. The x64 run is a little farther apart, but still close.

For synthetic gaming tests we used the industry standard and overlockers bragging tool 3DMark Vantage. This is a test that strives to mimic the impact modern games have on a system. Futuremark went a long way to change from the early days of graphics driven tests to a broader approach including physics, AI and more advanced graphics simulations.

3DMark Vantage uses the DX10 API in addition to having support for PhysX. As we are no longer using an NVIDIA GPU for testing (at least until we can get a GTX 4xx card) you will only see the CPU based PhysX results in the scores. For testing we use the Performance test run.

3DMark Vantage was also a close one; comparing a mid-range version of the last generation chipset to the top of the line version of the current gen is an interesting exercise.

Cinebench is a synthetic rendering tool developed by Maxon. Maxon is the same company that developed Cinema4D, another industry leading 3D Animation application. Cinebench R11.5 tests your systems ability to render across a single and multiple CPU cores. It also tests your systems ability to process OpenGL information.

Cinebench was another close race between these two very different chipsets, but it was not that big of a difference to be honest.

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